WHITE: A Tight Spot

Le Mans / ALMS

WHITE: A Tight Spot

We had really high expectations for Long Beach and everything was playing right into our hands until the pit stop.

Dale White | Posted May 05, 2010 Bozeman, MT

Team Manager Dale White watches on as Paul Drayson turns laps in the team's Lola B09/60 Judd at Long Beach. (Regis Lefebure/Drayson Racing)

Street circuits are always challenging not only for the car/driver but also the crew. It isn’t just about the track but the whole environment you have to work in. There just isn’t the space to work the way you would like so you have to work the best you can with what IMSA and the promoter give you. We knew it going in and we plan accordingly but there are always some challenges that you just have to deal with.

To prepare for this the best we can we started planning for Long Beach well ahead of time. We scheduled things with the knowledge that we wouldn’t be able to load-in to Long Beach until much later than we do at every other track. The more we could get done before Long Beach the better. That isn’t an easy task when you are re-building the car all-over again after the beating it takes at the 12 Hours of Sebring!

With that in mind, after Sebring the crew stayed at the track and worked for three days to prepare the car for Long Beach. Not all the work could be completed as parts had to be repaired or ordered. The bodywork and other items were taken to Crawford Composites for repair, paint and servicing in one of our two transporters. The other parts, from Lola, were delivered directly to Long Beach. All the logistic/travel planning for Long Beach was done well before Sebring. The crew was scheduled to arrive Tuesday, April 13 for set up in the paddock Wednesday. Just a few days earlier, we received the disappointing news that we could not load into the paddock until 2-3pm. We had planned to move in first thing in the morning, set up and get to work on the car. What made it more important was that we had the first scrutineering appointment: 8:00, Thursday morning. We had to use every available minute even if conditions weren’t ideal for working on a million dollar race car.

After the long flight from London to LA on Tuesday, the crew met the transporter at the staging area and were able to get some work done that night. We set up right next to the transporter and worked best we could until our scheduled load-in time came. The fact that everything is packed in tightly makes it difficult and a lot of work to get the car, tools and equipment unloaded/reloaded. Wednesday morning the crew went back to the staging area, unloaded it all again and worked until everything had to be reloaded for the truck to move into the paddock.

Drayson's Lola-Judd appeared to fit in well under the new combined LMP category. (John Dagys)

We were parked in the paddock by 3pm and the unloading process began again with the unique challenge of only having an area 21ft wide. We normally have 40ft but with so many competitors, and limited space at Long Beach, we could only have a 10ft wide easy-up canopy alongside the transporter rather than our 21ft wide by 70ft long awning. The crew did a good job of organizing things as best they could. We usually also have our transporters together but the second one had to parked outside the paddock on a nearby access road. The car was prepped and ready for scrutineering the next morning including the change of the positioning lights and number plates to blue. All six of the light arrays had to be changed out and rewired from red (LMP1) to blue (LMP). We will have to this a few times this year as we travel between events and classes. At Laguna Seca we will keep the blue but be back to red for Le Mans. Then it will be back to blue until Silverstone in September. We’re running the first of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup races there and it is under LMS rules – no combined class. Fortunately, Petit Le Mans is a full LMP1 class race so we will keep the red lights until the end of the year. That is just an example of the little things that you have to plan for. Success is in the details. Nothing can fall through the cracks!

Thursday was more car prep/set up and pit lane set up. Access to pit lane is limited to only when there is no track activity and space for the equipment is very tight. It is probably the biggest struggle in this part of the operation that we face all year. The shared events with the IRL are tough because they need their space, we need ours. In one way, this isn’t so bad for Long Beach because the pit lane is very long with the IRL cars on one end – nearest the hairpin – and us on the other. So, we don’t have to share pit stalls like we will at Mid-Ohio for instance. However, that is where the ease ends. The Long Beach pit lane is made-up of, essentially, a city street, its shoulder and a sidewalk. The actual width of the pit lane is pretty good but the area behind the wall – where the equipment is all set up – doesn’t leave much space. Once you have all of our timing cart, fuel rig and crew back there, there isn’t much room to move. I am glad I am up on the timing cart so I don’t have to deal with all the mass confusion of people walking through to reach pit stalls beyond us. The tight confines of the pits came back to haunt us later but, I am getting ahead of myself.

By virtue of leading the LMP points entering the Long Beach race we had the best paddock location and second best pit lane spot. Problem was, that made us about as far away from the pit as we could be. Once you left to go to a session, there was no going back so you had to make sure you had everything you needed. This was especially true for the crew. We had to have all the spares and tools that we might need with us. We found a good location to put our Michelin tires but everything else had to be in the pit stall by the start of the session. You also have a very narrow window of time to make that trek from one end of the Long Beach facility to the other. We had to take the equipment and car via the track and they only had short windows where the track was reserved for this purpose. Teams would be queued-up as much as 45 minutes before a session just to make sure they made it. That all has to be built into the schedule. I was glad we had been there before in ’07 and ’08. Otherwise, trying to learn the particulars of Long Beach can have some pretty harsh consequences.

We had also received the news late that our usual caterer, Vanessa Weikart, would not be at Long Beach due to space limitations. Vanessa arranged for the TV crew caterer to provide hospitality which was a little difficult to access outside the paddock in the TV compound. It all worked out but it was just a little different for us. Long Beach is all about adapting to the moment.

The schedule at Long Beach – because of all the support series to our main Saturday event and the IRL’s Sunday show – is tough. We start really early in the day and then work through the middle before being back on track at the end. Without a test day it is also a bit nerve-wracking. You have to be closer to having the perfect set-up out of the box at Long Beach than any other track. There just isn’t time to try multiple approaches. We did all we could on Thursday and then rolled it back in the trailer ready for Friday. Friday was busy especially with 5:30 leave time from the hotel for a 7:15 session. I love racing and don’t mind getting up early but a 7:15am session is early by anyone’s standards. We had two hours on track and it went well. Paul and Jonny were both right on pace. We had really high hopes going into the second session and then qualifying. We just had to wait the rest of the day to see how it went.

We made a major downforce change to the Lola entering the second session. It was a bit of a gamble. We knew it would make us faster through the turns but, despite all of our knowledge, Lola’s experience, data from the rig testing and the race at Sebring, we still weren’t sure how much the change would slow us on the main straight. We weighed our options and between Paul, Jonny, Graham (our engineer) and Dan Cox – our Lola representative on the team – we made the educated guess that more downforce would make us quicker overall… and the session proved that it did.

In qualifying, Jonny was on his flyer when we lost all contact with him. No data, no radio, nothing. Eventually the monitors showed him in a run-off zone trying to get the car turned-around. We thought perhaps he just went off trying to brake a bit later into the corner. However, the lack of communication suggested it might be something larger. Turns out that the main switch – which controls all the power to car – tripped. Like losing a major fuse in your house, everything came to a stop. Jonny did a great job of keeping it off the wall but our qualifying was done. We had to start the race based on the proceeding lap which wasn’t planned to be as quick. That was good enough for sixth on the grid and forced me to re-think the race strategy.

The tight confines of Long Beach meant there was very little room for error in the pit lane. (Regis Lefebure/Drayson Racing)

Saturday (race day) was unusual as well without a morning warm up. This meant for a lot of waiting around for the recon laps and race start at 4:40pm. We made the choice to start Paul. He has been running so well we knew that he could stay with the leaders and bring the car in with good track position. The plan was that Jonny would then attack the remainder of the race and see if we could score our first podium. The plan nearly worked to perfection!

Paul had a great start and got even better during his stint. His times were quick and he had moved us from sixth to fourth. We pitted about an hour into the race under the safety car. We were running P4 and Paul had done more than we could have asked. It was working just like we had planned. However, the tight pit lane would hurt us. Paul entered the pits behind the two cars that were stopped on either side of us. There was just no room to enter our pit box correctly. There was nothing he could do. We had to move the car several times before it was within reach of our fuel hose. Jonny got in and we fueled the car as quickly as we could but, by then, the damage was done and we were nearly a lap down. Paul had driven a spectacular stint and now Jonny was going to have to as well!

Jonny did a great job and was really moving us back to the front of the field. However, with about ten minutes left in the race, one of the GT cars went wide as Jonny passed him on the outside. I don’t think the other driver even knew he was there – having driven GT cars and managed them for years I know from personal experience how tough it can be to see a prototype behind you. Jonny was pushed straight into a tire barrier causing pretty extensive damage to the nose, left side of the car and rear wing. Under acceleration the wing came off and was left on the back straight. Fortunately, Jonny was able to catch the car before the lack of downforce threw him into the wall again. Once back into pit lane the crew did an amazing stop to get the nose and tail repaired in time for us to take the checkered flag. We were so close on this one… another tight spot!

After it was all over, we had to get both transporters packed up and moved out my midnight. Long Beach uses the ALMS paddock for parking on Sunday so the deadline is firm. We had our debrief and a quick bite to eat and the crew went to work loading the trailers. We pulled out onto Shoreline Drive at about 11pm. Not much to a race weekend as far as time is concerned but it’s a lot of work!

Sunday morning the crew set up shop for three days at Toluca Lake Classic Motorsports. The owner loves historic racing and is a big Lola fan who opened up their shop to us. Most of the work was done minus the few parts again that needed repairs or ordering. That allowed us to get a jump-start on Laguna (May 22). Back to a proper paddock space and a real race distance. Six hours in Monterey should be a perfect fit for this car and team.

We had really high expectations for Long Beach and everything was playing right into our hands until the pit stop. We’ll learn our lessons and move on. No matter what you do, Long Beach always seems to put you in a tight spot one way or another.

We’ll talk to you after Monterey!

~Dale

Dale White joined the Drayson Racing ALMS/LMS program as Team Manager in 2009 after one season as strategist/consultant. White is the founder and owner of White Lightning Racing.

Since 1999, White has directed over 100 professional racing series victories, seven team championships, two 24 Hours of Le Mans victories and multiple pit crew championships in Trans-Am, World Challenge, the USRRC, Grand American Rolex Series and American Le Mans Series competition.

White is an avid family man and outdoorsman, and lives a simple lifestyle in Bozeman, Montana with his wife Jackie allowing the couple to be closer to nature.

Learn more about the Drayson Racing team at www.DraysonRacing.com

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The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED

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Dale White

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